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Line play... (long)

Is the biggest thing holding this team back. On both sides of the ball.

Sure, it's easy to sit back and blame our QB for 0 points, or blame our DBs for Landry Jones hitting 30/34, but it ALL starts up front on both sides of the ball.

1) Our running game is non-existant right now. Last year, we ran the ball extremely well in our wins. Our line was shoving people around, and creating holes. We could milk the clock and just chew up yardage. This year, there's no consistency in our run game. You HAVE to get the run game going for the offense to work. I know people thought we'd be running a Mike Leach style Air-Raid, but unless you have a lazer QB or open receivers (we have neither), you need to run the damn ball. We did last year, and we aren't doing it right now. Yes, the lack of a run game is on the line. We have very capable running backs, but they need holes.

2) In the passing game, Arnaud, while not being a great player, gets little to no help. OU had him on the run all last night. There were way too many plays where he had to scramble to get the ball off. That didn't happen nearly as much last year. People want to complain about our QB, but look around college football. If you can't run the ball and give your QB time, they have to be an exceptionally good player to be successful. Right now, we'd be just as bad with almost anyone taking snaps, outside of a top 5-10 QB. If you can't run the ball, and you can't give the QB time, your offense is going to suck. Period.

Moving to defense...

1) Again, I see a lot of people blaming our defensive backs. Line play is just as critical on defense as offense. We are getting no pressure whatsoever. Opposing QBs sit in the pocket for what seems like hours. You can't expect your defensive backfield to cover someone for as long our guys have to be in coverage. Receivers have time to get open, and QBs have time to find them. Our best defenses in the past have ALWAYS included outstanding pass rushes. We don't have a pass rush to speak of.

2) Same goes in the run game. Our line gets blown off the ball, and it forces our linebackers to make tackles 4 to 5 yards downfield on every freaking play. Again, this is NOT a recipe for success. You have to get a push to contain the run game, and we have proven utterly incapable of this. If you can't stop the run, you can't stop the pass.

Basically, people want to complain about this guy or that guy, but in the end the fate of this, and any team comes down to line play. Iowa knows this, and it's the key to Ferentz's success. You could swap any of Iowa's skill position players or defensive backfield guys with us, and we wouldn't be any better off due to our poor line play. We could have Cromartie and Revis in our defensive backfield, and it still wouldn't matter when opposing QBs have all day. We could have John Elway circa 1988 playing QB, and we'd still have a limp offense without a consistent run game. Thankfully, on the offensive side of things, we have what looks to be an excellent crop of recruits coming up the ladder. Defensively however, we're still in the wilderness. Until the line play on both sides of the ball improves, our offense will struggle to do anything, and our defense will leak like a sieve.

Re: Line play... (long)

We just do not have the talent across the board to be competitive with the Top 10 ranked teams we've lost to. Against teams we're more talented than (NIU and UNI) we're 2-0. Against teams we're not too far behind the talent gap (KSU and TTech) we're 1-1 with both games being competitive. Against teams we're significantly less talented than at nearly every position (#15 Iowa, #10 Utah, #6 OU), we've gotten destroyed.

How many games are left on the schedule where we have a similarly talented opponent? KU, CO, um....

You can spend a lot of time and money picking out the perfect floral bouquet for your date ... but you're probably better off checking if you have bad breath and taking the porn out of the glove compartment.

The moral: you gain more by not being stupid, than you do by being smart. Smart gets neutralized by other smart people. Stupid does not.

Re: Line play... (long)

good post and I think you're spot on. The fact is every unit on offense and defense is struggling and we don't have the talent for one group to cover the lack of talent at other groups. Like you said we have very capable and proven skill position guys but our entire offensive scheme (especially the run game) is built around AA making reads based on oline play and the offense getting in a rhythm. When that rhythm gets bump AA goes from a solid QB to a poor QB, and when AA is out of his rhythm the back struggle to hit the holes and WR are forced to make tough catches. It all just compounds. The same goes on defense, when the Dline isn't holding its own LB's have bodies blocking them and DB's are forced to either play in coverage far too long or make way more tackles than they need to.

I think we have a lot of talent at the skill spots on both offense and defense but we don't have so much talent that we can hide our weaknesses. Unfortunately we just played 2 teams who were tailor made to exploit those weaknesses.

Re: Line play... (long)

Is the biggest thing holding this team back. On both sides of the ball.

Sure, it's easy to sit back and blame our QB for 0 points, or blame our DBs for Landry Jones hitting 30/34, but it ALL starts up front on both sides of the ball.

1) Our running game is non-existant right now. Last year, we ran the ball extremely well in our wins. Our line was shoving people around, and creating holes. We could milk the clock and just chew up yardage. This year, there's no consistency in our run game. You HAVE to get the run game going for the offense to work. I know people thought we'd be running a Mike Leach style Air-Raid, but unless you have a lazer QB or open receivers (we have neither), you need to run the damn ball. We did last year, and we aren't doing it right now. Yes, the lack of a run game is on the line. We have very capable running backs, but they need holes.

2) In the passing game, Arnaud, while not being a great player, gets little to no help. OU had him on the run all last night. There were way too many plays where he had to scramble to get the ball off. That didn't happen nearly as much last year. People want to complain about our QB, but look around college football. If you can't run the ball and give your QB time, they have to be an exceptionally good player to be successful. Right now, we'd be just as bad with almost anyone taking snaps, outside of a top 5-10 QB. If you can't run the ball, and you can't give the QB time, your offense is going to suck. Period.

Moving to defense...

1) Again, I see a lot of people blaming our defensive backs. Line play is just as critical on defense as offense. We are getting no pressure whatsoever. Opposing QBs sit in the pocket for what seems like hours. You can't expect your defensive backfield to cover someone for as long our guys have to be in coverage. Receivers have time to get open, and QBs have time to find them. Our best defenses in the past have ALWAYS included outstanding pass rushes. We don't have a pass rush to speak of.

2) Same goes in the run game. Our line gets blown off the ball, and it forces our linebackers to make tackles 4 to 5 yards downfield on every freaking play. Again, this is NOT a recipe for success. You have to get a push to contain the run game, and we have proven utterly incapable of this. If you can't stop the run, you can't stop the pass.

Basically, people want to complain about this guy or that guy, but in the end the fate of this, and any team comes down to line play. Iowa knows this, and it's the key to Ferentz's success. You could swap any of Iowa's skill position players or defensive backfield guys with us, and we wouldn't be any better off due to our poor line play. We could have Cromartie and Revis in our defensive backfield, and it still wouldn't matter when opposing QBs have all day. We could have John Elway circa 1988 playing QB, and we'd still have a limp offense without a consistent run game. Thankfully, on the offensive side of things, we have what looks to be an excellent crop of recruits coming up the ladder. Defensively however, we're still in the wilderness. Until the line play on both sides of the ball improves, our offense will struggle to do anything, and our defense will leak like a sieve.

D-line: It seemed like a lot of the time Landry was taking 3-step-drops and hitting receivers. The d-line wouldn't have had the time to be a factor even if they were good.

O-line: Even though there wasnt a lot of reaction (unlike the Sims news), I was really worried when it was announced that we were losing Haughton. Looks like that worry was valid.

Re: Line play... (long)

Originally Posted by Al_4_State

Is the biggest thing holding this team back. On both sides of the ball.

Completely agree. The line on both sides of the ball is horrendous. I'm not going to go off, because a simple description of "its terrible" sums it up nicely. I knew OU was going to destroy us, when Stoops has 2 weeks to prepare for us I knew it was going to be ugly. I still believe we can have a decent season, we won't be completely outclassed in our last 4 games like we were against Utah and OU. Getting beat down by Top 10 teams doesn't faze me, but I won't be happy if we can't win after our mid-season gauntlet.

Re: Line play... (long)

[QUOTE=Cyhart;1948072]D-line: It seemed like a lot of the time Landry was taking 3-step-drops and hitting receivers. The d-line wouldn't have had the time to be a factor even if they were good.

O-line: Even though there wasnt a lot of reaction (unlike the Sims news), I was really worried when it was announced that we were losing Haughton. Looks like that worry was valid.[/QUOTE]

Thats a great point, and I think most people assumed our line would be good enough to absorb his loss based on how it played last year. I think thats another factor as well, we saw a lot of guys be productive last year when we played a much softer schedule than this year. We had guys who weren't quite big 12 starting caliber playing last year but we had the advantage of playing some teams who were in a similar or worse situation that us. Trade out Utah for Army and OU for Baylor and some of these guys wouldn't have been exposed, and we'd still have the same opinion of them as in the preseason.I honestly don't think we're any worse off than last year talent-wise and we found our way to a bowl game despite a couple games looking like we didn't belong on the field with a decent BCS conference team (Iowa,A&M,Okie St). I'm optimistic we still can get those last 3 wins. We just need to split our last 2 road games and go 2-1 at home, not an easy task but the road gets a tad easier after next week.

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